"In formal writing, the ampersand is primarily used in the names of companies, such as "Johnson & Johnson."." This can be traced to when ‘&’ was treated as the 27 th letter … The scribae (Roman scribes) in the first century used to write in cursive.

Up until the 19th century, English used to have 27 letters in its alphabet. What Does ‘Ampersand’ Mean? Yes ‘&’ used to be the 27th letter of English alphabet in 1800s. Happy National Ampersand Day! Origin of the Shape. Finally, let’s look at the weird origin of the word ‘ampersand’. Yes! During the 19th century, American schoolchildren were taught to end their ABC’s with “X, Y, Z, and per se and” because the ampersand was indeed the 27th letter.

The origin of the shape of the character (‘&’) and its name (ampersand) is a story in itself. The symbol we know as the ... By the early 19th century, & was the 27th letter in the alphabet, coming right after Z. With so much presence of the ampersand in contemporary communication, the question now concerns where it fits in formal writing. According to Merriam-Webster, people would also use the phrase to identify single letters that were being used as words instead of letters. The ampersand dates all the way back to 45 AD and Johannes Gutenberg even included it on his first printing press in 1440. An ampersand is a symbol (&) representing the word and.The ampersand was included in the Old English alphabet, and the term is an alteration of and per se and.The symbol is a combination (or ligature) of the letters in et, Latin for "and. It may now mean ‘and’ by itself, but originally ‘ampersand’ was a mispronunciation of the phrase ‘and per se and’. At the time, the ampersand wasn’t the only letter that got the “per se” treatment either. For example, people would say “I, per se I” to show they meant the word I instead of the letter I. While this terminated letter is no longer in the alphabet, it is still quite popular, and almost all of us use it every day. The mark is appealing because it helps save character space, it fits right in with other letters’ heights, and many could argue it’s one of English’s better-looking symbols. The ampersand used to be a kind of 27th letter, at least for educational purposes: it was included at the end of students’ recitation of the alphabet. We’re talking about the (&) ampersand. The 27th Letter Of English Alphabet . Yet, many of his friends where appalled at his decision, because in computer systems of that time the "Klammeraffe" was the control character for deleting a line; now suddenly, the "line killing" character was shortening letters in an awkward manner. In April 1975, this problem too was solved by way of a new agreement on a standard letterhead. The evolution of ampersand from 1st century AD to modern times.